QuotedData Monthly roundup | Investment companies April 2017 Winners and losers in March Best performing funds in price terms in March: Worst performing funds in price terms in March: (%) (%) Kubera Cross Border +19.2 Geiger Counter -16.0 Macau Property Opportunities +18.4 Infrastructure India -15.4 Manchester & London +14.7 Polo Resources -13.2 India Capital Growth +10.8 EF Realisation -12.6 F&C Capital & Income +10.3 Golden Prospect Precious Metal -12.3 Threadneedle UK Select +9.6 Globalworth Real Estate -10.6 Fundsmith Emerging Equities +9.2 Prospect Japan -10.4 JPMorgan European Income +9.0 City Natural Resources -10.4 Jupiter European Opportunities +9.0 Better Capital 2012 -9.8 Fidelity Asian Values +8.8 EPE Special Opportunities -9.2 Source: Morningstar, Marten & Co Source Morningstar, Marten & Co Best performing funds in NAV terms in March: Worst performing funds in NAV terms in March: (%) (%) India Capital Growth +7.5 Geiger Counter -12.1 British & American +7.3 EF Realisation -11.2 JPMorgan European Smaller Companies +6.7 UIL -6.5 Jupiter European Opportunities +6.6 Doric Nimrod Air Three -5.7 Aberdeen New India +6.5 City Natural Resources -5.0 JPMorgan Indian +6.0 Amedeo Air Four Plus -4.8 Marwyn Value Investors +5.7 BlackRock World Mining -4.4 Establishment Investment Trust +5.6 Golden Prospect Precious Metal -3.7 TR European Growth +5.4 JPMorgan Brazil -3.6 Pacific Horizon ++5.1 Premier Energy & Water -3.5 Source: Morningstar, Marten & Co Source Morningstar, Marten & Co Kubera Cross Border managed to sell its interest in Resources funds fell as the failure of the Republican Planetcast Media during the month. Macau Property health bill called into question Trump’s ability to execute Opportunities published its interims and reported on his ambitions to reflate the US economy. Geiger positive sentiment in Macau. India Capital Growth has Counter was worst hit. The bankruptcy of Westinghouse been doing well as investors’ fears over the impact of may lead to delays or cancellations in the building of new demonetisation have eased (see our note for more nuclear power stations. Prospect Japan reported a poor detail), large cap Indian funds have also been rising. set of results. Better Capital 2012 took a big hit to its Threadneedle UK Select is merging with Henderson NAV as it wrote down the value of its investment in High Income. European and Asian markets did well on Jaeger. Dollar weakness had an impact on the NAVs of the back of positive data, benefitting funds such as funds such as Doric Nimrod Air Three and Amedeo Air JPMorgan European Smaller and Fidelity Asian Four. A dip in the oil price hurt Lonestar Resources, EFR Values. Realisation’s largest investment. NB: this report has been prepared by Marten & Co and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to encourage the reader to deal in any of the securities mentioned in this report. Please read the important information at the back of this note. QuotedData is a trading name of Marten & Co Limited which is authorised and regulated by the FCA. Marten & Co is not permitted to provide investment advice to individual investors. QuotedData April 2017 Significant moves in discounts and premiums More expensive relative to NAV (notable changes) Cheaper relative to NAV (notable changes) Signs of improvement in the local property market helped Prospect Japan’s discount widened even though it is narrow Macau Property Opportunities’ discount. still subject to a takeover bid. EPE Special Manchester & London has been one of the best Opportunities’ discount spiked out towards the end of performing UK equity funds (by virtue of its significant the month but has narrowed since on the back of good overseas exposure). F&C Capital & Income moved results. Fidelity Special Values has been performing back to trading on a premium after a brief period of share fairly well but it may have suffered as investors lost faith price weakness. GLI Finance placed all of its holding in in the Trump growth story. Aberdeen Smaller the SME Loan Fund with new investors and the removal Companies Income’s results showed that it lagged its of this overhang helped narrow the discount. benchmark last year. Bankers’ discount has moved to trade at the bottom of its usual range. % discount (-ve) or premium (+ve) % discount (-ve) or premium (+ve) 28 Feb 31 Mar 28 Feb 31 Mar (%) (%) (%) (%) Macau Property Opportunities -36.2 -24.0 Prospect Japan -3.6 -12.6 Manchester & London -20.8 -11.1 EPE Special Opportunities -18.3 -25.9 F&C Capital & Income -4.8 +3.0 Fidelity Special Values -2.0 -8.4 SME Loan Fund -9.0 -2.6 Aberdeen Smaller Co.s Income -17.4 -23.5 Threadneedle UK Select -9.4 -3.2 Bankers -2.8 -8.5 Source: Morningstar, Marten & Co Source Morningstar, Marten & Co Baillie Gifford has been managing investments since 1909. Our success has been built on finding good investment opportunities for clients through extensive independent research. Our fundamental analysis and judgement over the years have helped us to become one of the UK’s largest independent investment management groups with over £145 billion of funds under management and advice as at 31 December 2016* Baillie Gifford is one of the largest investment trust managers in the UK with a range of seven trusts. We also have an extensive range of OEIC sub-funds and manage investments globally for pension funds, institutions and charities. *Source Baillie Gifford & Co As with all stock market investments, your capital is at risk ADVERTISMENT Money raised and returned in March Money raised in March Money returned in March £m £m Biopharma Credit 607.1 Alliance Trust 756.5 HICL Infrastructure 260.0 Scottish Investment Trust 94.3 Impact Healthcare REIT 146.2 Aberdeen Frontier Markets 59.8 John Laing Infrastructure 119.5 Mercantile 25.6 Renewables Infrastructure Group 110.0 JPMorgan American 17.7 Source: Morningstar, Marten & Co Source Morningstar, Marten & Co March saw the launch of two new funds, BioPharma Credit and Impact Healthcare REIT. BioPharma Credit raised $761.9m from investors. It will invest in a portfolio of loans most of which will be backed by royalty payments on Monthly roundup Page | 02 QuotedData April 2017 medical treatments. Impact Healthcare REIT is investing in residential care homes. It has a portfolio of care homes lined up and will issue a further 14m shares when that acquisition goes through. Existing fund, HICL Infrastructure, raised £260m from investors. This is a lot of money to take in from a secondary issue of shares but HICL say that they had applications for three times as many shares as were available. Another infrastructure fund, John Laing Infrastructure, raised £119.5m from a placing, while two renewable energy funds, Renewables Infrastructure and Foresight Solar, raised £110m and £78.5m respectively. Blackstone/GSO Loan Financing, which invests in CLOs (see the glossary on our website for an explanation) is running a new 12-month placing programme. It issued €75m worth of shares in March. Scottish Mortgage, which has just entered the 100 Index, saw its ongoing tap issue raise £35m in March. Regional REIT issued £28m worth of stock as part of a deal it did to acquire a portfolio of properties from Conygar. Duke Royalty issued £15m worth of shares as it was readmitted to trading on AIM. Like BioPharma, it will start making royalty investments. Other notable issuers of stock included Personal Assets, JPMorgan Elect (as it took in money from the M&G High Income rollover – see below for more detail), Finsbury Growth & Income and Custodian REIT. Alliance Trust shrank by over £750m as it bought back Elliott’s stake in the company and conducted a number of other share repurchases in an effort to keep its discount trading around the 4.75% mark. Alliance wasn’t the only venerable Scottish Trust forced to hand back cash to shareholders. Scottish Investment Trust became the latest fund to buy back shares held by Aviva. Aberdeen Frontier Markets offered all of its shareholders the chance to sell their holding back to the company. The fund reduced in size but it has shifted to investing directly rather than through funds and Aberdeen Asset Management have backed it with their own money (see our note for more details). The usual suspects, including Mercantile and JPMorgan American continued to shrink (JPMorgan American is revamping its investment approach in the hope of improving performance) as well as British Empire, Templeton Emerging, Toro, Impax Environmental Markets, Witan and VinaCapital Vietnam Opportunities – all of which bought back stock worth at least £5m. Electra is planning a special dividend of £1bn or 2612p pence per share payable in May 2017. Commentators have condemned the move which penalises individual shareholders who hold the company outside of a tax-protected wrapper (such as an ISA or SIPP) and have questioned why the company isn’t making a compulsory redemption of shares instead. We said goodbye to three funds during March. 60.8% of Aberdeen UK Tracker’s shareholders have opted to take cash rather than roll over into Aberdeen Diversified Income & Growth. In the wind-up of M&G High Income, £166m was repaid to shareholders in cash; £251.8m went to M&G UK Income Distribution Fund; £10m each to M&G Strategic Corporate Bond Fund and M&G Dividend Fund, £7.8m to JPMorgan Elect Managed Growth, £4.4m to JPMorgan Elect Managed Income and £1.8m to JPMorgan Elect Managed Cash. New City Energy is now in liquidation March’s major news stories – from our website Portfolio Developments Corporate News • FastForward